the Fresno case: the mandated answer is worse than useless
E.T.A.’s staff counselor is the bird-of-prey-faced Dr. Dolores Rusk, M.S., Ph.D., and she’s regarded by the kids as whatever’s just slightly worse than useless.
Context
The institution's official response to the deadliest thing about its own project is a parody. The mandated Ph.D. is "the bird-of-prey-faced Dr. Dolores Rusk," rated by the kids as "whatever’s just slightly worse than useless," whose entire technique is to — — hand your own words back with a question mark. The screening apparatus that a dead Fresno family made compulsory is staffed, at E.T.A., by someone who does nothing but echo. The institution has satisfied the letter of the requirement and evaded its whole point.